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Personality Psychology PSY 405

Lesson 42

PERSPECTIVES OR DOMAINS OF PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY

Personality can be approached or studied Using the six perspectives or domains.

1-Dispositional

2-Biological

3-Intrapsychic

4-Cognitive/ Experiential

5-Social and Cultural

6-Adjustment

Dear students we have covered at least two to three personality theories related to each of the perspectives.

1-Dispositional

2-Biological

3-Intrapsychic

4-Cognitive/ Experiential

5-Social and Cultural

6-Adjustment

We will talk about the first three approaches or perspectives in more detail

1-Dispositional

2-Biological

3-Intrapsychic

1-Dispositional

It deals with the ways in which individuals differ from one another in their emotions, self concepts, in

physiological characteristics and even in their intra-psychic mechanisms

The origin of these differences and how these develop and how they are maintained

The term disposition refers to specific ways or traits or stable internal characteristics.

So traits or motives or cognitions are the raw material of personality development.

The goal of the psychologist is to identify and measure the important ways in which individuals differ from

one another

How many personality traits exist?

A person's personality is viewed as being built out of a set of common as well as important traits.

What is the best classification system of traits?

The Natural Language Approach

2- The statistical Approach

3- The Theoretical Approach

How are traits measured?

Traits are measured qualitatively as well as quantitatively.

Traits are used in selecting people for specific careers or for specific education,

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Will an aggressive person be a suitable for the post of a police officer, or a kind hearted lady will be

suitable for the nursing job?

Allport's Theory and Cattle's Theory.

Kelly's Theory and Murray's Theory.

Traits account for a person's behavioral consistency over time and across situations. They may be classified

under - cardinal, central, or secondary - according to their degree of pervasiveness within a personality.

The construct that unifies traits and provides direction for the person's life is termed the proprium or self.

For Cattell factor analysis is a method used to discover traits which he considers the building blocks of

personality. An ability discovered in such a cluster is called a factor and in Cattell's theory, the term factor

is equated with the term trait.

1- Unique Traits

2- Common Traits

3- Surface Traits

4- Source Traits

Need

A need is a construct which stands for a force which organizes perception, apperception, interjection,

conation and action.

1- Primary and Secondary

2- Overt needs and Covert Needs

3- Focal needs and Diffuse Needs

4- Proactive Needs and Reactive Needs

The TAT was developed (Morgan & Murray, 1935) out of Murray's belief that many of the basic human

motives exist outside of conscious awareness.

For Kelly an individual's behavior and thoughts are guided by a set of personal constructs that are used in

predicting future events.

Each individual creates his or her own unique constructs for dealing with the world, trying to reduce future

uncertainty and he is free to view and think about reality.

2- Biological

Humans are first and foremost collections of biological systems and these systems provide the building

blocks for behavior, thought and emotions

The biological approach refers to three areas genetics, psychophysiology and evolution.

1-Genetics

It is concerned with the genetics of personality.

Are identical twins more alike or fraternal twins in their personalities?

What happens when identical twins are reared together versus when they are reared apart?

The psychophysiology of personality summarizes what is known about personality in terms nervous system

functioning of neurotransmitters, cardiac reactivity and links between hormone and personality.

3- How evolution has shaped human psychological functioning; this approach assumes that

psychological mechanisms that constitute human personality.

1- Selective breeding

2- Family studies

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3-Twin studies

4-Adoption studies

Freud's psychoanalytic theory

Sheldon's theory

Erikson emphasis on biology

Opposed by Karen Horney

3-The Intra-psychic approach was founded by Freud, who assumes that a human personality is formed

out of conflicts between basic needs and demands of the society. Most of these conflicts are at the

unconscious level and they affect our everyday behavior.

There are other psychodynamic theorists who differed from Freud such as:

Jung

Adler

Karen Horney

We will talk about these in detail

4- Cognitive/ Experiential

5- Social and Cultural

6- Adjustment

4- The Cognitive/ Experiential Approach: It focuses on the cognition and subjective experiences such as

conscious thoughts feelings, beliefs and desires about one and others. The psychological mechanisms

involved in subjective experience, however, differ in form and content from one another

1- The focus is on differences in cognitions, perceptions, emotions and self.

2- The focus is on understanding experience from the person's point of view.

So we differ from each other in these two ways.

So we will deal with

1- Cognitive experiences,

2- Emotional experiences (intelligence) and 3-Experiences of the self

Self Esteem, Self Actualization

Self Identity, Positive and Negative Identity

Cognitive experiences are what people perceive and pay attention to, how they interpret the events in their

lives and their goals and plans and strategies.

Now all these kinds of experiences refer to how people process information or let's say how we perceive

events, people and our selves.

Humans are not like computers who process information objectively and accurately.

We perceive and experience reality using a set of personal cognitive constructs.

An event has happened so we process information by our own personal cognitive style

Why did it happen?

Whose fault is it?

Personality psychologists focus on how people make attributions of responsibility and a tendency to blame

one self for all the bad events.

The second category of experience is emotion which is important.

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Are you usually happy or sad?

What makes you angry?

What makes a person anxious?

Can you control your temper or mood?

Emotional experiences are thought of states or as traits

The frequency of emotional experiential states is low while emotional experience traits refer to the

tendency to be frequently.

The emotions as traits can be divided into two areas

Content (it refers to kinds of emotions)

Pleasant - Unpleasant

Style of emotional life (how these emotions are experienced)

High or low Emotion Intensity

The content relates to pleasant or unpleasant emotion such as happiness or joy or success while unpleasant

emotion relate to depression, anxiety, anger, hostility, aggression.

The style of emotional life refer to the fact that some people experience at a higher intensity then others

For such high affect intensity persons an ordinary pleasant event will make them very happy event and

an ordinary unpleasant event will make them very sad, depress and anxious.

The experiences of the self are unlike the experiences of cognition and emotion.

1- Self can be studied in the context of real and ideal self

2- Self as Identity

3- Introverts or Extroverts

4-Self Esteem and Self Actualization

1-Self - Real and Ideal Self is a Description

2- Self as Identity Refers to Role Assigned

3-Introverts or Extroverts Refers to Type

4-Self Esteem and Self Actualization - Refers to Force or Strength

Theories Related to Self Concept

1- Self- real and ideal self (Karen Horney, Rogers)

2- Self as identity (Erickson)

3- Introverts or Extroverts (Carl Jung)

4- Self esteem and Self actualization (Maslow, Rogers)

Theories of personality included in this perspective are Kelly's, Karen Horney, Erickson, Maslow and

Rogers.

5- Social and Cultural

The assumption that personality not merely something that resides within the brain, nervous system and

genes of individuals rather the social and cultural context has an important role.

At the cultural level it is clear that groups differ from one another

In this domain the emphasis is on personality as is affected by:

1- Social Institutions

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Social Roles

Social expectations and relationships with people

1- Social Institutions Refer to Home, School, and Neighborhood.

Social Roles Peer, Sibling, Student

Social Expectations and Relationships with people Friendly, Enemy or

Culture and society makes up the rules that influence:

1- Social Institutions

2- Social Roles

3- Social Expectations and Relationships with People

People from different cultures have different personalities because different cultural forces shape their

personality.

It is interesting to note that there are more similarities then differences in individuals from diverse cultures

Related to dress, style of living and food preferences.

People raised in American culture tend to describe themselves in abstract concepts

I am honest and trustworthy.

I am straight forward and polite.

People raised in Asian culture tend to describe themselves through social relations

I am Mr. A's daughter

I am Mr. B's sister

The concept of gender and different rules related originates from culture

John Gary's book men are from Mars and women are from Venus says that men and women are different

species and rules and norms for both genders are different

The culture of growing up as a boy or as a girl is different.

The way people interact with boys or with girls are different

Men are more aggressive in all cultures

Personality psychologists have looked for similarities between cultures.

People from all cultures smile when they are happy and frown when they are sad and bare teeth is a sign of

anger.

Theories of Allport, Cattle, Maslow, Erickson, Rogers and Kelly.

6 - Adjustment

This refers to the fact that personality plays a key role in how we cope, adapt, and adjust to events in our

every day live

Personality is linked with important health issues such as heart disease, sleep, diet, and the role of exercise

in long life of an individual.

The personality to help us adjust to the challenges and demands of life, in a unique way for all of us.

We will focus on Physical health and

Mental health

We face stress every day and react to it as well.

How we feel and interpret stress varies from person to person.

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Personality plays a key role in how we appraise and interpret stress.

Now some of us appraise, interpret, cope, adapt and adjust to stress well.

While some of us display patterns of emotions, behaviors and interpersonal relations that create problems

for themselves as well as those around them.

So coping with stress and disorders of personality define the adjustment domain fully.

Personality is linked with health outcomes such as heart problem, diabetes, ulcers and even some cancers

are the result of stress.

Personality is also related to certain behaviors such as smoking, drinking and risk taking.

Old age problems and retirement problems are also related to stress.

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